Ron Paul Plays Immigration Card in NH

This week, Ron Paul has started running “get tough” ads on NH television. [WorldNetDaily: Ron Paul shocker: No more ‘anchor babies’, January 4, 2007]These are some of the most frank ads relating to immigration we’ve ever seen from a major presidential candidate.Now, I wish Paul luck in his New Hampshire race. I feel Paul clearly has the best immigration record of the current GOP line-up. However, I can’t help but wondering if Paul is emphasizing the wrong aspects of the immigration issue to win in NH. NH is a state with quite a bit of tech employment. I suspect the jobs of many folks in NH are more threatened by programs like H-1b than by illegal immigration. Now, Paul’s record on resisting expansion of H-1b is better than any other major GOP candidate (Kucinich is the only Democrat with a better record on resisting expansion of guest worker visas.)Still, the anchor baby issue is very, very real. Someone I know well used to work in a birth center at UC San Francisco. They had a steady stream of women who would fly out from Asia near the end of their pregnancies specifically so their child would be a US citizen. Those women were generally part of Asia’s middle class-and would enter the US legally on a tourist visa. I applaud Dr. Paul’s courage in bringing this issue up.

What is interesting here, is that Paul’s ads in NH just may be starting to work. In the latest Rasmussen Poll, Paul was coming in 3rd at 14%. That is a huge change from past polls-and a better performance than Paul had in Iowa.

The central rule of politics is constant improvement. If Paul can come in a surprise 3rd in NH and then continue doing better in other states between now and Super Tuesday, he may still have a shot at the GOP nomination.

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